I'm sitting at modern shopping mall in Kotor, Montenegro at the foot of the Kotor Fortress which is a UNESCO world heritage site. Normally I would not consider heading for a shopping center when something so fascinating is nearby but I have to confess, I feel pretty good.  And by "pretty good", I mean the air conditioning is blasting and I'm not out there in the thirty-who-even-cares-how-many degrees sun. It is stinking hot out there. Is it just me, or is there some kind of change in the climate going on?

The fortress at Kotor was started over 2000 years ago give or take and was added to piece by piece over the centuries by various world powers of the day. To me it is one of those crazy impressive structures that awes you with the engineering and near superhuman determination required to build it. Beyond that it is sobering to be reminded in such a stark way what lengths we go to in order to fight with each other --or defend ourselves from each other--depending on how you want to look at it.